"How can we be spies, sergeant, in our own country?" said Blouse calmly.
"The el-tee's got a point, sarge," said Maladict.
Jackrum turned like a bull at bay, and then to Polly's amazement he sagged. But she wasn't amazed for long. She knew the man. She didn't know why, but there was something about Jackrum that she could read. It was in the eyes. He could lie with eyes as honest and tranquil as those of an angel. And if he appeared to be backing away, it was indeed only to get a run-up later on.
"All right, all right," the sergeant said. "Upon my oath, I am not a man to disobey orders." And the eyes twinkled.
"Well done, sergeant," said Blouse.
Jackrum pulled himself together. "I don't want to be a sunflower, though," he said.
"Happily there are only fir trees in this area, sergeant."
"Point well made, sir." Jackrum turned to the awed squad. "All right, Last Detail," he bellowed. "You heard the man! Spruce up!"
It was an hour later. As far as Polly could tell, they'd started out for the mountains but had travelled in a wide semi-circle so that they ended up facing back the way they had come, but a few miles away. Was Blouse leading, or had he left it to Jackrum?
Neither man was complaining.
The lieutenant called a halt in a thicket of birch, thus doubling the size of the thicket. You could say that the camouflage effects were effective, because bright red and white shows up against greens and greys. Beyond that, though, language tended to run out.
Jade had scraped off her paint, and was green and grey anyway. Igorina looked like a walking brush. Wazzer quivered like an aspen all the time, so her leaves rustled permanently. The others had made more or less reasonable attempts, and Polly was pretty proud of her own efforts. Jackrum was about as tree-like as a big red rubber ball; Polly suspected that he'd surreptitiously shined up his brasswork, too. Every tree held a mug of tea in limb or hand. After all, they'd stopped for five minutes.
"Men," said Blouse, as if he'd only just reached that conclusion. "You may have gathered that we are heading back towards the mountains to raise a deserters' army there. This story is, in fact, a ruse for the benefit of Mr de Worde!" He paused, as if expecting some reaction. They stared at him. He went on: "We are, in fact, continuing our journey to the Kneck valley. This is the last thing the enemy will be expecting."
Polly glanced at the sergeant. He was grinning.
"It is an established fact that a small, light force can get into places that a battalion cannot penetrate," Blouse went on. "Men, we will be that force! Is that not right, Sergeant Jackrum?"
"Yessir!"
"We will come down like a hammer on those forces smaller than us," said Blouse happily.
"Yessir!"
"And from those that outnumber us, we will merge silently into the forest - "
"Yessir!"
"We will slip past their sentries - "
"That's right, sir," said Jackrum.
" - and take Kneck Keep from under their noses!"
Jackrum's tea sprayed across the clearing.
"I dare say our enemy feels impregnable just because he commands a heavily armed fort on a rocky crag with walls a hundred feet high and twenty feet thick," Blouse continued, as if half the trees weren't now dripping tea. "But he is in for a surprise!"
"You all right, sarge?" whispered Polly. Jackrum was making strange little noises in his throat.
"Does anyone have any questions?" said Blouse.
Igorina raised a branch. "How will we get in, sir?" she said.
"Ah. Good question," said Blouse. "And all will become apparent in due time."
"Aerial cavalry," said Maladict.